Happy New Year Everyone :foodndrink:

I've always been kinda bothered by the fact that my companions run in front of me when I'm about to fire on an enemy and I end up shooting them in the back. Does anyone know a way around this without destroying the erosiveness of the moment
(immersivness) ????
Sorry, I had a Sarah Palin moment!

1) Get an archer companion.
2) Learn how to aim better.

I honestly can't think of anything.
Whenever I'm playing an archer character he usually goes solo. That or I find him a companion that doesn't mind being shot in the back everyday.

Unfortunately, this is a problem with Oblivion's AI, I seem to recall having accidentally killed some of the guards involved with the Kvatch quest before, I suppose they deserve it if they're not smart enough to know that running in front of me when I'm attacking might be dangerous. But that's not very conducive to companions' survival, so I'd say if you want to avoid it, use ranged companions. I believe that some companion mods give you the option to decide whether your companion should use ranged weapons or melee. Of course, sometimes I just don't bother. I'd suggest letting your companion take care of ranged combat and you be the melee guy, but that might lead to your companion shooting you in the back instead. I know that I've sometimes been hit by the spells of summoned creatures before, and in Morrowind, I had a particularly bad experience where I kept dying due to being hit by a companion's area effect spells. It got to the point where I'd look forward to her running out of magicka because I wouldn't have to worry about being killed by her spells anymore.

Fighting with companions is indeed a challenge, and there are no super great solutions (not in vanilla anyway). My character is a mystic archer (bow and some magic, but no melee).

In her game, she tends to maximize use of the 'wait here' option with those companions that have it while she slinks ahead to snipe away any foes. Nevertheless, there are times when she does fight with companions, for one reason or another.

If the companion is a ranged attacker, they try to stand shoulder to shoulder. This works fairly well and does not change her basic tactics too much.

The bigger challenges are with melee companions. As much as she appreciates the 'tanking' of having some big strong fighter trying to protect her, it can be frustrating. Here are some of her thoughts on working with a melee companion:

- If the foes are creatures, she casts a big area of effect powerful command creature spell. This does not harm/effect her companion, but it renders the creature foes docile. She then calmly but quickly kills the temporarily friendly creatures.

- If the foes are humanoids, things are harder. She may try circling around them for a clear bow shot from the side. She may go invisible, circle behind the foe and carefully use touch magic (she likes a brief paralyze spell + absorb health for this). She may decide that this is too hard, and if her companion is reasonably effective, may simple try to remain behind him and heal him as he fights. If her companion does not cast spells and they are fighting a mage, she may try a wide area of effect spell to silence the mage without harming her companion.

- If one has the magical mojo for it, cloaking one's companion in full chameleon for a fight could probably be quite helpful. There are a couple ways of doign this, but she has not tried it.

-She normally will not bring forth a summon for fights with companions around- it seems they are just as guilty of friendly fire as anyone else. In fact, she has had a guard turn on her mare because the guard accidentally got kicked as her horse was trying to kill a mudcrab - nasty little creatures, you know; it took quite the magical efforts to diffuse the situation and calm the guard.

:poke: :slap: :foodndrink:

I don't think I know anything about "erosiveness" :blink:

But I do know that my "allies" habits of running in front of my character just as I've started an unstoppable attack is one of, if not the, single most annoying features of the game.

Ally AI is horrible. I'm not aware of a fix. Hopefully it will be improved in Skyrim. Fallout 3 AI is much better so hopefully that will carry over to Skyrim. But for this game I simply avoid allies as much as possible. They are more of a hindrance than a help.

Ok! I'll just deal with it. Thanks for the input***** sorry about that immersivness thing******* Not sure if it's a word or not.